ABSTRACT
In France, too, the law and jurisprudence as such should be considered as different and distinct from the majoritarian social belief. Considering this distinction, French jurisprudence is not very far from US jurisprudence. Many people in France and outside France confuse laicite with a regime of freedom with the state being antireligious. Laicite is a legal regime which in the first place is concerned with the protection of the freedom of conscience including of a believer. In France, the public school has always been a border zone, a zone frontiere. In 1989, at a high school in Creil, a few young students wanted to wear the headscarf. The issue of religious holidays returned because the social reality is that Eid and Ramadan have become such large social events in France that at some point the French legislator will have to adapt the official holiday’s regime to the diverse religious landscape of the country.
